“I,” I said fervently, “do not wish to find them."
He made a grimace. “Quite."
Dots rose from the green carpet ahead of us. I peered under my hand.
At my gesture, Rollo span about swiftly and stared forward. I felt the tenseness in him that made his body stiffen into immobility.
“Now may Jallalak the Merciless be contumed!” His voice croaked. “Xichun!Damned xichun, flying to devour us!"
The flying animals swarmed up from their aerial perches. Like wind-driven leaves they were upon us in mere moments. Bodies glinted green and gold with red-edged scales, deeply curved wings beat strongly, sinuous necks and whiplike tails gave them a long menacing outline that the small heads with jaws stuffed with needle teeth perfectly complemented. These flying lizards were the kings and queens of predators among the life-forms of the forest canopy. Now they wanted us for lunch.
They were something like the xi of the Stratemsk. Iridescent wings fluttered about us. Tails lashed. Wedge-shaped heads darted forward.
Yet—our shape must have puzzled them. We had no wings. What, their lizard brains must be asking, what have we here?
They circled us, flying up and swooping down, around and around. Very soon they would dart in and seize their prey.
“Now,” I told Rollo, “is your chance to act as a Bowman of Loh."
In this I was being heartless and cruel. Rollo did not know the ability of most vollers to outspeed most varieties of flying birds and animals. These xichun could probably keep up with us for a short time, and then, inevitably, muscles would tire and the voller would speed on. Still, he wanted to act as a brave adventuring Bowman of Loh. This was his chance.
I give this explanation in all shame; and add that in just about the same heartbeat I recognized that meritorious though it might be to instruct this young tearaway in the rigors of the adventuring life, that could weigh as nothing beside the far more important consideration. By the sweet teachings of Opaz! I was actually contemplating shooting, killing and destroying living creatures merely to teach a young scamp a lesson!
I tell you, in that moment, I, Dray Prescot, etc., etc., felt extraordinarily small. Tiny, by Krun!
I shoved the controls over to full speed and full lift.
We began to speed up and shoot up in the air.
The xichun must have construed that movement as threatening them, for they chose that moment to attack. With a wild hissing and a massive beating of wings, they began their swooping onslaughts.
“Here they come!” yelled Rollo.
“Take the most threatening!” I bellowed back.
He lifted his bow and let fly. He missed.
“How can you shoot straight with the wind of this contraption? Every shaft will be blown aside!"
“Allow for it. Like this."
My shaft took the leading xichun in the wingroot. He span about and immediately fluttered down to the green treetops. I felt the emotion of sorrow for him, and of elation that I'd exactly hit my mark.
Rollo shot again and again missed. I took out a second xichun and then we were racing up and away and the flying lizards beat futile wings far in our rear.
Rollo looked back. His face began to resume its natural color.
“By Lingloh! We've escaped!"
I felt it prudent not to mention what had really occurred.
And then—and then as I turned to look forward again, there they were, flying in a ruler-straight line ahead of us. Their black hulls and their squared-off upper works could not be mistaken.
In a controlled voice I said: “Have a look for'ard, Rollo. Remember what you see."
With that I thrust the levers savagely over. The voller dropped vertically through thin air. There was one chance. If we could find a gap in the brellam trees we could fly between the widely-spaced trunks out of sight of those black-hulled flying ships and their damned Shank crews.
Rollo staggered as the flier dropped and grasped the rail. He stared forward and upwards. He was smart enough to understand instantly just what we had run into now.
In a small voice he said: “Do you think they will see us?"
“They have eyesight."
His right fist clutched the rail and his left clenched on the longbow. Deliberately, forcing himself to move, as I could clearly see, he peered overside. The green forest floor catapulted upwards. “There is a gap."
“Dondo!"
“Perhaps."
I knew exactly what he meant.
Up there that drilled line of ships began to turn. The Shank flying vessels began to curve in towards us. Two of the foremost in line dipped and then dropped clear through the air. There was no doubt they'd seen us, and now they were after us.
A quick glance below showed me the gap Rollo had seen. One of the giant brellam trees had fallen. The hole in the canopy exactly matched the fullest extent of a tree's branches. There was room for our small voller to dive in.
“We will do it!” Rollo's voice screeched up the scale with released emotions. “We can go through. But the Shank ships are too big to follow!"
I hesitated for only a couple of heartbeats. Better he get the full picture right away. I said: “They will launch smaller boats."
“Oh."
“And,” I added, “here come those confounded xichun again."
He stared below and aft. The flying lizards beat strongly on towards the gap in the trees. They had given up pursuit of us; now we were dropping back to where they could get their talons and teeth into us.
“We must smash straight through them.” He took his right fist off the rail and reached for an arrow.
The picture presented itself to me in one of those mental flashes of vision so familiar to a watch-keeping officer on a black night off Brest. This was a problem to be solved, trigonometry in action. Of course, this was no bloodless theory, this was red-raw action; all the same, our course of action was dictated by those same laws of abstract mathematics.
The gap, a kind of locus of action, remained the focus of attention. Towards it streamed the xichun, jaws filled with needle teeth agape. Towards it dropped the Shank fliers, and soon they'd launch pinnaces and longboats of the air. Towards it we flew in a desperate attempt to slip through first.
“Come on! Come on!” I was saying to myself. My lips clamped fast shut.
Rollo kept staring forward and up at the Shanks and then back and down at the xichun. The fist that held the longbow had the finest of trembles.
The breeze whistled past. The Suns shone. The air smelled rank with the jungle smell of Chem. I thought of Delia—a stupid remark, for whenever do I not think of her?—and tried to push the control levers past their stop notches. We dropped stone-like to the green gap.
“They're pushing out little airboats!” called Rollo.
“I see.” Half a dozen small fliers dropped away from the larger flying ships up there. They came down stone-like, too; I fancied we'd be through the hole in the canopy before they reached us. The question then was, would we slip through before the xichun reached us?
That question was answered very quickly in an uproar of battering wings, lashing tails and lancing heads. The xichun surrounded us as I slowed the voller down to a rate of descent that wouldn't smash us to pulp under the forest canopy. We sank down fast enough as it was, by Krun, and I had to keep one eye on the controls and the other on the xichun.
Rollo let fly, and missed, and swore, and so snatched up another shaft.
I made no move to use my bow. The voller dropped rapidly, and with a cautious nudge on the forward control lever I edged her into just the right position. A xichun got his jaws wedged into the wood gunwale under the rail. He was dragged down with us, flapping his wings in frenzy. Another of the lizards landed on deck in a great flutter. Rollo screeched a warning.
With regret I ripped out my sword—leaving the controls—leaped at him and dodging his strike cut halfway through his neck abaft that small head. His frothing scream was chopped off. He coll
apsed onto the deck, untidily strewing his wings and tail over the rails. There was no time to deal with the poor creature. He was impelled to kill and eat us through force of nature; we had no such compulsions.
There was time only to jump back to the controls and swerve the voller cleanly through the gap.
Looking upwards I saw the mass of fluttering wings and licking sinuous necks and tails. They swirled crazily about the hole in the leaves; they did not follow. This fact gave me a severe dose of dire foreboding.
Rollo choked out: “Even the xichun are afraid of what lives here!"
The lizard with his teeth caught went berserk. His wings buffeted a gale across the deck. At last with enormous effort he managed to drag his head free. He left a clump of those needle teeth standing in the gunwale, the green ichor dribbling down. He flew up in a series of lurches to join his fellows out in the light of the Suns. For, down here under the canopy, the light was deep-sea green, gray and leprous, unappetizing.
The slanting mingled rays of jade and ruby from the gap revealed a different world. Here the tall straight stems of the brellam trees reached from the forest floor to the forest canopy. That was not quite all, for, indeed, there were parasitical plant growths upon those splendid trunks. Perhaps there were not as many parasites as epiphytes, and certainly there were nowhere near as many as there would have been if the brellam trees had not excluded so much of the light of the Suns.
The ground was a long long way down, sheathed in gloom.
The rank smell of a jungle was here subtly altered. Those cup-shaped leaves grew to a considerable size, and then fell to be replaced by new growth. The ground was well mulched. But there was little else to add a particular smell. Small furtive movements upon the trunks and among the vines would be tiny creatures carving out a niche in the chain of life. I had a nasty idea of what lived down here, and what so frightened the xichun.
The black boat-shaped silhouette sprang into view in the centre of the gap. Instantly it was surrounded by infuriated xichun.
I said: “If the Shanks intend to follow us they will deal with the xichun as we did. Time to go."
“We cannot go west out of the forest—"
“That is true. But we can continue south."
“What? And hope to avoid the Shanks altogether?"
“We can but try."
I realized I was not being particularly helpful to Rollo; but my mind had gone back a good few seasons to that time when Delia, Seg, Thelda and I had flown down out of The Stratemsk to cross the Hostile Territories. We'd been attacked by giant coal-black impiters, as ferocious as these xichun. Our voller had been badly knocked about and was unable to escape. We'd probably have taken a nasty beating from the impiters, even if they hadn't succeeded in eating us all, had not a swarm of tiny pink and yellow birds saved us. They had a feud with the giant impiters; they won.[4]
[4 See Warrior of Scorpio, Volume 3 of the Dray Prescot Saga. A.B.A.]
I said: “Find some strong canvas, Rollo. Drag it out onto the deck and get ready to hide under it. Don't leave any gaps."
“Do what?"
“You heard."
“But—"
“And put in some of the flying silks and furs, too."
“Very well.” He'd caught the ugly undercurrent in my voice.
In the area of ground beneath the hole there would be the most unholy battle between new brellam trees and whatever other unfortunate vegetation had seeded itself there. In the end one brellam tree would win out over all the others and by denying them water and sunlight would dispose of his or her brothers and sisters. If the new area of leaves did not exactly fit the hole, adjustments would be made. These brellam trees lorded it, and they intended to keep the balance of nature that way. As for the animals of all kinds living on their trunks, these would be tolerated. I kept a sharp look out through the green gloom between those serried ranks of trunks.
This modulated deep green undersea gloom could have a profound effect on the spirits. I did not think the forest would provide adequate support for human beings to make a life here—it might, of course, humans are fiendishly adaptable—so that if we ran across any of the forgotten cities of Chem here I had the conviction their inhabitants would be a morose lot.
“The Whoorn-forsaken Shanks have broken through. They're following!"
I looked back. Two of the pinnaces flew down between the trunks, the suns light sparkling for the last time upon the weapons of the Shanks aboard. They started after us with evident evil intent.
“There will now be,” I said, trying to lighten this desperate situation, “a quantity of consummate flying."
“Eh?"
“We've got to go fluttclepper flick between the trees."[5]
[5 fluttclepper flick: Hell for leather—very fast and risky speed. A.B.A.]
“We have to escape—"
“Keep a lookout for any swarms of small birds."
He opened his mouth, and closed it, and then said: “Very well."
He didn't know what I meant, not yet. Havilfar is the continent for saddle flyers. As far as I knew there were no birds or flying animals in Loh large or powerful enough to carry a human being and who might be trained to do so. If they were large enough then, again as far as I knew, they were intractable. We had to go fluttclepper flick between and around the trunks and if we were caught then there'd be no more of Dray Prescot upon Kregen.
The Shanks soared along after us. We sped on ahead. I needed to calculate out the relative speeds, for I'd no way of knowing how fast the Shank's flying pinnaces could go. Farris had sent me a good voller; she was not of the finest but she had a fair pair of heels. As we sped along in that half light between the trees the Shanks gradually gained on us.
“Faster, Drajak! Faster!"
“See for yourself. The speed lever is hard against the stop."
“Then this time we are doomed—we must be!"
“This time we are doomed,” I parroted him. “What kind of weak melodramatic fustian is that? If we're done for, if we're going to die, then say so, for the sweet sake of Beng Pulphan!"
“All right, all right! Tighten your scabbard!"[6]
[6 Tighten your scabbard: Slang for ‘Don't lose your temper', ‘Don't get off your bike.’ A.B.A.]
I didn't reply directly to that acute remark; but I felt vastly pleased Rollo was acting so well. This kind of fraught situation would most certainly reduce many folk to abject terror. He'd wanted to go adventuring and, by Krun, he was tasting what it was like!
We roared on between those timeless trunks. The gray-green light washed us with a corpse pallor. The Shanks drew closer. Our voller would not fly any faster. The flying was demanding, swerving between the trees and lining up for the next gap and then a swift jink to avoid the trunk suddenly directly ahead. I had to give my full concentration to piloting; what Rollo was doing now was up to him. He might shaft a few Shanks before we were overrun.
The violent maneuvers at last dislodged the unfortunate xichun on the deck. He slid sideways as I jinked particularly sharply around a trunk and flopped off to tumble away below. He'd make food for the trees, eventually.
At last I saw them, up ahead.
At first I thought they were insects, a swarm of bees. They filled the aisle between the trees in a black cloud.
As we neared, for I dared not slow down, I hauled up the prepared silks and furs and draped them over me one-handed. I got the canvas up and Rollo was there, helping me.
“See to yourself—” I started.
“Now I see what you meant. Can you pilot this thing safely?"
“I don't know. I must look out ahead to avoid the trunks."
“So they'll be able to get at you—"
“Wrap yourself up and don't leave any chinks."
I didn't look back as Rollo wrapped himself up. I had a tiny gap to see through, a chink as large as one eye. Piloting was a nightmare, I can tell you! The voller hurtled on between the tree trunks.
The black cl
oud ahead resolved into a multitude of tiny dots. They were birds, sparrow size, with short stubby wings and long tails and beaks—those beaks! They were long and curved and sharp, sharp. If a xichun ventured down here through a gap it would be ripped to pieces. I knew.
And here we were, about to plunge into a furious flock of these ferocious little birds. I drew a breath, lined up the opening between the trees that formed a short aisle, aimed the voller, and hauled the flap of canvas across my eye.
In the next heartbeat the voller rang and resounded with the violence of hundreds of enraged little birds hurling themselves at us.
* * *
Chapter eleven
Sharp points thrust through folds of the canvas. I felt the blasted little prickings all over my body. These little frightfuls had beaks as sharp as one of Seg's arrow points! That made me think that Rollo the Runner at this rate of punishment might never get to Vallia and stroll through the glades of lisehn trees, from which the fine Vallian bowstaves are built.
I jumped and twitched as the beaks stuck into my flesh. But the canvas and the furs held off most of the length of the curved beaks. Mostly these birds caught and ate the small living things on the trunks, and insects hiding in the cracks of the bark. As for the xichun, they could drive the big lizards mad with their torments. And, if we weren't out of it quickly, so they would us.
All this time my mental clepsydra had been counting off the passing murs. We must have reached the end of that aisle through which I had set our course. I had to take another look out. I had to throw back the flap of canvas so I could see, and that meant the deadly little birds could thrust their beaks straight into my eye. By Makki Grodno's own suppurating and dangling eyeballs! I said to myself. Not zigging likely!
The dagger I'd taken from poor old Lin snugged into my hand. I held it up before my eye, cutting edge forward. Then, with my other hand I carefully lifted aside the flap of canvas. I stared past the dagger into the gloom under the canopy and at once tiny bodies were hurling themselves at my face, crazily beating at what they saw as a threat, smashing into the upright dagger. Many of them were cut and slid aside. I had to ignore all that uproar. I had to see where the tree trunks were and where the next aisle lay. The dagger shook in my fist so great was the pressure. The trunks lined out a trifle to the right. The dagger could not be lowered. So I humped around like an Eskimo and got my left hand down to the controls and still a fold of canvas buckled above my eye so that I could see past the dagger. Lining up the voller with the aisle between the tree trunks and dropping the canvas flap back took only moments. I let the dagger sag down. I felt as drained of energy as though I'd swum the Cyphren Sea.
Scorpio Invasion [Dray Prescot #40] Page 9